Member Article

Plans submitted for £135 million Castleford stadium development set to create 2,000 jobs

Plans have been submitted for the £135 million Five Towns Park development in Castleford, set to create 2,000 permanent jobs.

The development will involve a 10,000-capacity stadium for Castleford Tigers RLFC and more than 570,000 sq ft of retail space, with developer Lateral Property Group having also signed up a major high street retailer to the project.

Lateral said it has exchanged contracts for Next to anchor a 70,000 sq ft home and garden store which will sell clothing, furniture and DIY products.

Dominic O’Rourke, group property director at Next, said: “This is an area where we have limited physical presence, but where we know we have a loyal customer base through our Next Directory and online businesses and this development demonstrates further commitment to our successful multi-channel strategy.”

Philip Lunn, managing director of Lateral said: “After almost three months of public consultation, we have now submitted our planning application for Five Towns Park to Wakefield Council.

“We have received over 1,400 feedback responses with 86%of those in support of the proposals. We would like to thank everyone for their feedback.

“As a result of the consultation, we have made a number of amendments to the scheme, such as introducing local match day parking controls, improving public transport links to the site and putting a roof on the north stand of the stadium.

“We are confident that our planning application makes a very strong case for the development which, if approved, will provide 2,000 much needed permanent new jobs for the area, along with much wider socio-economic benefits in the form of the community stadium, country park and major transport improvements.”

Subject to securing planning approval, Lateral hopes to be on site in summer 2015 with completion of the project in 2017. GMI Construction has been appointed as main contractor for the development.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Clare Burnett .